Monarch Butterfly

Monarch butterfly is a great subject for early grades science
project on insect development. It's areal covers most of the North
America, and it was introduced in Australia and New Zealand in 19th
century.

Monarch butterfly also known as milkweed
butterfly probably the most famous of all butterfly species. It's top
traveler among all known butterfly species. During the lifetime it can
fly thousands of miles from the place where it hatched.

Every year monarchs make a seasonal travel from Florida to north and
west of US. There is the monarch
butterfly watch project open for everyone. It's great summer
activity.

You can also study butterfly life cycle as an individual summer project
(and cover yourself for biology science fair).

A few facts
about Monarch Butterfly.

Scientific name of the butterfly is Danaus plexippus.
It belongs to subfamily Danaidae
of family Nimphalidae.
Unlike other butterflies all Nimphalidae
have only 4 fully developed legs, two front legs are reduces and folded
to the body so it's hard to see them.

Monarch is poisonous,
but it does not produce poison. It stores it from food. Monarch
caterpillars eat poisonous swamp plant (or swan plant in Australia and
New Zealand) and keep poison in their bodies. It's interesting
that
as many other poisonous insects monarchs developed yellow and
black
colors for it's color scheme. Do they have agreement with bees and
wasps? Caterpillars are also black with bright yellow and white stripes.

Monarch's home is the milkweed plant from the Asclepiasfamily.
In US it's Asclepias incarnata and in Australia and
New Zealand it's Asclepias
fruiticosa.

Monarch butterfly wing span
ranges from 8.5 to 10.2 cm

Watching the
Life Cycle.

You'll
need a swamp plant to feed a caterpillars. You can grow one or if it's
available buy one in the gardening shop. Put it outside and wait. If
there are monarchs in your area they find your plant and lay some eggs
on it. Check the plant regularly to see if there are eggs or
caterpillars on it.

Hatched caterpillars first eat their egg shells and then
start eating your plant. You don't want too many caterpillars on one
plant as they will finish it off before they grow old enough to form a
chrysalis. As caterpillars grow their skin becoming tight. Insect's
skin can not grow with the body and caterpillars are not exception from
the rule even though their skin look soft. Monarch caterpillars shed
their skin five times.

Where is the head?!

When caterpillar is ready to turn into chrysalis it attached
itself to
the plant stem with silk. Then the metamorphoses begins. It's quick and
dramatic change of the whole caterpillar's body.

Hanged caterpillar. This
procedure called

Chrysalis is the metamorphosis result. You can see wings
outline and
belly segments "engraved" on chrysalis shell. It's glossy and green and
you can not see what happens inside. Try to use torchlight to see
what's going on under the surface.

Chrysalis. Butterfly in
development.

One day before butterfly hatches chrysalis changes it's look
again. It's surface becomes transparent and you can see fully formed
butterfly sleeping inside.

See through. You can see wings
inside chrysalis shell.

Bright sunlight can trigger hatching. It's quick process that
takes
only about 10-15 minutes so try to catch it. Chrysalis shell
cracks in the middle and butterfly fells out, grabbing shell with the
legs. Antennas and proboscis (it's mouth) packed in the special tubes
attached to the front side of the chrysalis shell and butterfly may
have hard time releasing them. On the photo below you can see that
proboscis have two halves that stick together to form an empty tube
that allow butterfly to drink nectar from the flowers.

Butterfly is born!

Newborn butterfly have one important thing to do - stretch its
wings.
In chrysalis wings are tightly packed inside the shell so when
butterfly hatches its wings are small and folded. It's using liquid
stored inside its body to unfold them. It pumps liquid in the wings
veins and unfold them. Wing's are very heavy and very soft at this
point and butterfly should hold on the leaf or stem wings down and wait
until they completely expanded and dry.

Straightening the wings.

This is how monarch butterfly wing looks like under the
microscope.
It's 40x magnification. You can see "huge" black veins and tiny yellow
scales. Scales cover the whole surface of the wing. Each scale can have
individual color and they form the wing pattern , like pixels form
image on your computer's monitor.

Scales on the wing

Things to do
if you grow the butterfly.

When you work on your science project one of the most
important
things you should do is to write down your observations. Especially
dates. When
caterpillars hatched? Have you noticed them shedding the skin? How long
does it take? How long caterpillar grow until it turns into chrysalis?
What is the length of newborn caterpillar? Fully grown caterpillar?

Write down answers to this questions and ask yourself more
similar
questions.

What else can you study?

Here are some butterfly science project ideas:

Is it going to be any difference in development
time for caterpillars that live on the plant that receive a lot of sun
vs plant that stay mostly in the shadow?

Will caterpillars grow in the total darkness?

Do they sleep and if yes, what is their
sleeping cycle?

What happen if monarch chrysalis will be turned
upside down? Will butterfly develop?

If you have plenty of caterpillars, you can also decide to do
an
anatomical study and dissect caterpillars and pupae during development.
Make sure you put them to sleep and do dissection under 10x binocular
for better results.